Pingu's Punishment
Most people grew up with a happy little show called Pingu. Pingu was a show that featured a clay penguin named Pingu and depicted his daily adventures. The characters always spoke in some sort of penguin language. The original show ran from 1986 to 2000. However, there was apparently an unreleased episode that was released a year later. Now, this is where it starts to become interesting. When I was 5, or 6, I saw the beginning of a Pingu episode called "Pingu's Punishment" on TV. I only saw a bit of it, but what I remember was Pingu was very angry, and his mother began smashing plates. I also remember the episode was about Pingu playing outside when he was supposed to be doing chores. My mother came in at the plate smashing part, shut off the TV, and told me that dinner was ready. After dinner one night, I was looking up the episode list on Wikipedia to find out that no episode called "Pingu's Punishment" was released. I thought this as an adventure to myself and contacted Trickfilm Studios, the company who made Pingu. I asked for a complete production guide of Pingu and they sent it to me via email. I looked at it, compared my version to Wikipedia's list, and I noticed something was wrong with the final season. "Pingu Helps Grandfather", which was the 23rd episode of season 4, was missing. At the bottom of the list was an episode titled "Pingu Ending". I asked for a synopsis, but they refused to give me one, stating it was personal information. I then googled "Pingu Ending" and "Pingu's Punishment". Then, I found something. It was posted on rapidshare. The file's name was Pingu's Punishment Unreleased Last Episode.zip, and I downloaded it. I went to "My Downloads" and I found the folder. It contained two files. One was a notepad file. It was titled end.txt, I opened it. It read: This is an unreleased episode of Pingu dated April 11, 2000. This was originally planned to end the series, and it was actually released in some countries. Watch at your own risk. I began to feel a bit suspicious and my heart pounded. But my curiosity overtook me. I opened the second file, an avi file. The 1st part was the same episode I saw when I was a kid. However, something felt off. The theme song was distorted and instead of Pingu's usual "Noot Noot", there was backwards audio. I recorded it with SoundRecorder and played it in reverse. The message was: "You can't survive like this beyond death." I found that very creepy but continued with the video. I got to the part where Pingu's mother was smashing plates. Suddenly, it cut to black. A blood curdling scream was heard. It faded back to the kitchen. Pingu's mother was sitting on a stool crying, only it sounded real. She continued crying, but now it started to sound like laughter. Suddenly, it cut to Pinga. Pinga was lying down on the floor, her head was ripped off. I paused it there, I felt sick. But what made me sick more was that it wasn't clay blood. It was either food coloring or it was real. I continued watching the episode. Pingu's mother kept crying. Then, it cut to historical footage of two scientists going into a slaughterhouse. It showed a bunch of cows getting slaughtered. Suddenly, it showed a penguin on the conveyor belt. The butchers slaughtered the penguin in the same fashion as that of the cows. Soon, it began showing pictures of dead penguins. It cut back to Pingu's mother crying. A trampoline was now in the kitchen. There was also a fan. She jumped up to the fan and blood splattered everywhere. The body of Pingu's mother fell down with a soft thud. It showed pictures of the dead bodies of Pingu, Robbie, Pinga, and the other characters. An old music box playing "Hush Little Baby" faintly played. I felt really nauseous and sick after witnessing what I just saw. I continued with the video. A distorted voice said something backwards. I recorded it and played it in reverse. It said: "Your life will be all pitch black in a few seconds. You must be smart enough to play this backwards, because you're foolish enough to believe me." My chest pounded. The credits were in Times New Roman. The background continued to show the disturbing images. It closed with a background of a mask with red eyes. The mask said in a distorted tone: "Darkness begins now." Suddenly, my computer froze. My lights flickered and the power went out. The power came back on within a few seconds later. I was now shaking and wanted to find the source of this film. I got in contact with Carlo Bonomi, the voice of all the characters. I pretended it was an interview and I talked about Pingu. I finally mentioned "Pingu's Punishment". He stopped, and he asked where I had heard that title before. I explained the entire thing to him. He then told me the story. During the 4th season of Pingu, there was an writer/animator named Ted Goldman. Ted was a quiet man, who usually wasn't that sociable. Sometime during the middle of the season, Ted's mother had been trying to reach something from the upper shelf. The ceiling fan was still on and she got decapitated. Ted was immediately hurt by this. He began submitting morbid ideas, such as Pingu killing all the other characters. He even asked Bonomi to do a voice of Pingu dying. Goldman found out that Pingu was closing production at the end of the season. Ted passed off the episode as the series finale. Right after they had watched this episode, they discovered Ted was being charged with animal cruelty, arson, and murder. Ted left an apparent suicide note claiming he was going to live in Antarctica. However no records claim he was ever there and he was last spotted in Santa Barbara, California purchasing a gun. They never found him. I was left shocked. Then a thought occurred to me to play the entire episode backwards, starting from the part where the distorted voice began. I heard a scream, a shout, and a very eerie voice that said something that still haunts me to this day. "The only way out of this hell is suicide."